This Week In Food: Handrolls All Over

Athanor arrives in Lower Pac Heights, Handroll Hawker opens its doors in Russian Hill, and Mama Ji's calls it quits after 15 years in the Castro, all in This Week in Food.

The big fine dining news of the week is that Anomaly chef Mike Lanham, who shuttered his three-year-old Lower Pac Heights restaurant in June, has returned to the same space at 2600 Sutter Street with a new tasting-menu concept called Athanor. As he told Eater, he suffered some extreme burnout and exhaustion this spring and needed a major break. A fan favorite egg dish that dates to Anomaly's pop-up days is back, but otherwise the 10-course tasting menu is headed in new directions, a bit one being fermentation. Also, the interior of the space looks a bit different now. Find reservations here.

Handroll Hawker opened on Tuesday, on Polk Street in Russian Hill (2360 Polk at Union, aka the former Tonic), offering readymade, grab-and-go sushi handrolls, in the style of similar Australian shops. It's the project of Australian filmmaker Romi Trower, as Tablehopper previously reported, who missed being able to grab these simple handrolls for quick meals, and they come with fillings like spicy tuna and tempura shrimp. They're open 11:30 am to 7:30 pm daily.

In other handroll news, a new sister business to KAIYŌ Resturant and KAIYŌ Rooftop in SoMa is KAIYŌ Handroll Bar, which just opened in Cow Hollow (1838 Union). As Tablehopper tells us, like the other KAIYŌ restaurants, the menu features Nikkei cuisine — Peruvian-Japanese food that originated from Japanese immigrants to Peru a century ago — including traditional Peruvian fare like lomo saltado and ceviches. There are also nineteen handroll options, including vegetarian options, classics like salmon-avocado, and one with Wagyu lomo saltado. Find reservations here.

We have two bits of news in the Castro: First, 15-year-old Sichuan-style dim sum restaurant Mama Ji's (4416 18th Street) is closing its doors at the end of October. The neighborhood favorite, known for its popular dim sum brunches and its spicy food, some featuring numbing Sichuan peppercorns, is calling it quits, as Hoodline reports, because owners Lily Ji and husband Marv Wolpa have decided to get out of the restaurant business.

Second, we now know what is going to replace Kitchen Story at the corner of Sanchez and 16th, which closed back in January. As Hoodline reports today, owners Steven and Ji Yeon Choi, who also own popular brunch spots Sweet Maple and Blackwood, as well as U:Dessert Story next door, are holding onto the space as they said they would be. But the new concept is not going to be a full-service restaurant. Jandii Cafe will be a scone, matcha, and coffee cafe, highlighting freshly baked scones in different flavors, as well as imported matcha from Japan. Like the first Jandii, which opened in the Parkside neighborhood in June, the Castro location will feature a bright, calming environment inside with plenty of plants ("jandii" means "lush, green meadow" in Korean). No opening date for the new Jandii Cafe has been announced.

Opening the week after next at the Ritz-Carlton on Nob Hill is Bruma, which we first reported on last month. The moody-looking new cocktail lounge is not replacing Parallel 37, the hotel's restaurant, but will serve food — including a Wagyu smashburger — and will be hosting things like afternoon tea service. More details still to come.

Decades-old Mai’s Restaurant, a reliable Vietnamese spot in the Richmond, has closed. One of the restaurant's owner-operators had knee surgery late last year, which led to a temporary closure of the restaurant, but other than that, no specific reason for the closure was given.

And over on Divisadero next week there will be a pop-up preview of Olive Juice, a new all-day cafe from restaurant and branding designer Hannah Collins Tate and her company ROY Hospitality. From October 8 to 11, Olive Juice will be serving some of its menu — think healthy bowls, quiche, and an olive oil cacao espresso — from a truck behind what will become its eventual space, opening this winter, the former Kelly-Moore paint store at Divisadero and Oak.

This week I attended an onstage chat between longtime Chronicle restaurant critic and food editor Michael Bauer and current critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan, who seemed very congenial with one another. The conversation was led by food section editor Janelle Bitker, and they covered topics like why the Top 100 is ranked now (everyone else, like the NY Times and LA Times, is doing it, Fegan said), and how frequently Fegan gets recognized these days. Bauer, who tried to remain anonymous though he wasn't really for the last decade or so on the job, said that he would still sometimes get seated at the worst table in a restaurant if he wasn't initially recognized by the host, because he tended to dine very early, like as soon as a place opened — so he could get home and maintain his 5 am wakeup schedule — and restaurants always want to fill those bad tables first.

Whether he intended it or not, Bauer also threw a bit of shade at the current team as he noted he used to write three reviews a week — one new and two updates of older restaurants — and Fegan and colleague Cesar Hernandez are currently averaging about one review every two or three weeks, between the two of them.

They also discussed the merits of star ratings, and how they may allow for lazy readers to skip the full review and just look at the stars, they also provide an under stable rubric when it comes to value. And, lo and behold, the Chronicle brought back stars this week with Fegan reviewing House of Prime Rib. The "Merry Olde England theme restaurant that time forgot," Fegan writes, gets two stars, indicating a "great" if not always "excellent" place to dine.